Dimension Hop
by Metal Gear Prime
Summary: NOW UPDATED! Chapter 2 sees Hana and Rain stumble into the middle of an all out war. Who will they side with; the garden gnomes or the giant teddy bears?
1. The Wonderful Mr. Horse

Dimension Hop

By Kingdom of Deke

Summary: Hana and Rain cause chaos across dimensions with aid of a weird dimension hopping mechanical horse. Yes, my friends, surrealism is alive and well in Fear Effect country…

Couples: Hana/Rain obviously…but not right away. They start off as mercenary partners more than anything else, then friends and finally lovers. I would really appreciate feedback on this score.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hana or Rain and the whole dimension hopping mech horse concept came from Scud: The Disposable Assassin, a wonderfully demented comic series.

Author's note: This story is sort of an Alternate Universe story. Basically, Hana's past is the same as it was in the game, but Rain's is different, (no gods for parents; here she's just an ordinary woman from California with Chinese parents, hence the Qin surname). The duo first meet when their respective hits suddenly cross paths and, after eliminating their targets and after a night of drinking, decide to team up. Definitely one for the 'It seemed like a good idea at the time' books… 

As we join the story Hana and Rain, with a small dimensional portal opening device they 'borrowed' from a tech lab, cross the threshold into the dimension known as Zif. Once there, they are hired to save the beloved King Zgornyfloozy from a band of rebels. However, things do not go according to plan…

Feedback: Yes please! And lots of it!

Chapter 1: The Wonderful Mr. Horse

"He's WHO?!"

Hana closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "The monarch of Zif."

Rain looked at Hana, then back at the multi-limbed, multi-eyed, multi-bullet riddled bright green corpse. "The guy we were hired to save?"

"The very same."

"Ah."

Silence.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that was him?" Rain said, waving the massive multi-turreted cannon the tech heads had dubbed 'Hypervelocity'.

Hana looked at her partner as if she had two heads. "By the numerous pictures they were showing us of the king and his family."

A look of comprehension passed over Rain's face. "Is that what that was? I thought they were showing us the local wildlife to avoid."

A silent, somber moment passed, broken only by Rain pulling a camera out of her backpack and taking a picture of the ex-living monarch.

"What are you doing?" Hana asked, stunned.

"Taking a picture. If we can't collect the reward money we can at least sell the pics to the Enquirer." She took a few more photos before noticing Hana's expression of disbelief. "What?"

Just as Hana was about to tell Rain the reasons you shouldn't take photos of brutally murdered popular kings she happened to glance behind the younger mercenary. Her eyes grew wide.

"Does the Enquirer accept photos of angry rampaging mobs?"

"Do they EVER!" Rain replied. "Why do you ask?"

Hana pointed a shaky finger at a point behind Rain, who turned around to discover an angry rampaging mob heading straight for them.

"Ohhhhhhhhh shit!"

Before either of them could move the mob had completely surrounded them, pointing various vicious looking, ludicrously huge guns at their bodies. One of the mobs noticed the corpse. 

"THEY'VE KILLED KING ZGORNYFLOOZY!!" he yelled too loudly.

Rain decided to use her last ditch attempt to stave off death. 

"WE'RE PRETTY SURE HE WAS GOING TO BE THE NEXT HITLER!!!" she yelled.

"Oh, lord…" Hana moaned, burying her face in her hands.

"ENOUGH!!!" screamed the same man as before. "DIE!!!"

As one the mob aimed their guns at the duo and fired.

*****

"SNORT!"

"Did you hear that?" Rain asked.

"Yeah." Hana answered.

Silence.

"Sooooo…what d'ya think it is?"

"I don't know. I have my eyes closed."

"Same here."

More silence.

"Shouldn't we be dead now?" 

"Actually, now that I think about, yeah we should."

As a nice change of pace, we get more silence.

"Oh to hell with this", Rain said impatiently. She and Hana open their eyes to find…

"What the hell…" Hana said, staring in amazement at the scene around her.

All around them, from the bullets just inches from their bodies to the furious soldiers and civilians firing said bullets, was frozen.

"What's going on here?" Hana wondered aloud, peering at a solider who was in the middle of reloading his rifle.

"Dunno", Rain answered, shouldering her mightily impressive 'Hypervelocity' cannon. "Whatever's happened saved us from getting drilled full of holes, so I'm not complaining." With that she started to poke at especially short solider with a long, elegant finger.

Poke, poke, poke…poke, poke, poke…poke, poke- 

"Would you cut that out!" Hana yelled, her voice amplified by the utter silence that now surrounded them. She hadn't meant to yell at her partner the way she did, but the sheer errieness of the situation was…unsettling.

"Alright, geez", Rain muttered, disguising the slight hurt she felt. "It's only just-" She trailed off as they both became aware of the thing which had made the snort noise.

From what they could tell, it was a tall, silver, extremely goofy looking mechanical horse. 

Hana's expression settled between bemused and curious. "Don't recall seeing this when we arrived…" she muttered as she and Rain edged closer.

"Weird", Rain agreed.

Once they had gotten close enough, Hana put her hand underneath the creature's cylindrical snout. She was surprised to feel a warm breeze on her palm.

"Hey, this thing's not frozen! It's like…what are you doing?"

This was directed at Rain, who had seated herself on one of the horse's saddles.

"What? I always wanted to be a cowgirl."

At the mention of the word 'cowgirl' a picture of Rain in a scanty western outfit winged its way into Hana's mind. For some reason, a lot of images like that had been winging their way into her imagination over the past few weeks.

"Would you get off of that? We need to get out of here", Hana ordered, searching for the portal opening device. "Now where is that blasted- "

"It's over there", Rain pointed at the small silver device sitting at the feet of a frozen solider. 

As Hana strode over to the device Rain spoke up again. "Betcha it doesn't work."

"What?"

"I'm just sayin', it's probably frozen in time like everything else here."

"Oh, now that's-"

Whatever else Hana was going to say was lost as she first lightly tapped the buttons, then started to furiously jab at them.

Sensing that she was almost defeated, Rain patted the saddle in front of her. "Room for one more."

Sighing, Hana tossed the device away and hoisted herself into the front saddle and grabbed hold of the reins. Once she was in place, Rain wrapped her arms around Hana's waist to keep herself in place.

Mmmm…nice…whoa! 

Rain quickly loosened her grip. _Where the hell did THAT come from?_

"Alright, then", Hana said, more to distract herself from what she felt when Rain had her arms around her, "what do I now?"

"I dunno", Rain shrugged. "Get it to start moving I suppose."

Hana had a quick think. Suddenly, an idea came to her. Making sure she had a tight grip on the reins, she made a 'chik-chik' noise with her tongue.

The result was almost instantaneous. Rearing up on its hind legs, the horse let out a high-pitched ninny then bolted forward at immense speed. As it galloped the world seemed to melt away and was replace by a background of sheer black.

"MAKE IT STOP!" Rain screamed, the first tugs of motion sickness manifesting themselves thanks to the almost unbearable speed.

"I DON'T KNOW HOW!" Hana screamed back, holding on to the reins for dear life.

Then, just as suddenly as it had galloped out, the horse galloped back into normal space leaving its two passengers bemused and somewhat ill.

As soon as her eyes could focus again Rain scanned the barren surroundings. "Where are we?"

Hana opened her mouth to reply when a huge shadow suddenly covered them and the next few miles of landscape. Hana and Rain hesitantly looked behind them. Their eyes scanned ever upwards as their mouths hung open. They spoke just one word in unison.

"FUCK!"

To Be Continued…


	2. We sure ain't in Kansas no more...

Author's note: The Mad Chasers are from Parasite Eve 2 while the Hard Hat Macs are from the Mega Man series. Informative, aren't I?

Chapter 2: We sure ain't in Kansas no more…

Hana and Rain gazed upwards at the huge beast menacing them, its powerful arms spread apart in triumph.

It was big.

It was strong.

It was…

"Oh, how cuuuutte!" Rain squealed, her eyes growing insanely wide while she clasped her hands together.

…a giant, mega-cute pink teddy bear.

"Ghaaa", said Hana, her mind threatening to up and leave if it kept seeing things like this.

"HUG!" suggested the teddy, opening its arms even wider.

"It wants to HUG!" Rain squealed in Hana's ear. "Oh man, I SO would want one of these in my collection."

Hana rolled her eyes in exasperation. _Oh god, please don't let her start going on about that blasted Beanie Baby collection of hers again… _she thought to herself.

And lo, some deity or other heard Hana's plea, for at that moment the teddy's chest suddenly opened up, revealing four massive cannons, each with eight turrets, aimed directly at the Hana, Rain and the horse, who during all this had remained perfectly still and disinterested.

"Ohhhh, great" muttered Hana.

Suddenly, just as the teddy unleashed its deadly arsenal on the mercenaries, the horse decided to actually do something. It sprinted out of the deadly hail of fire with a surprising agility, alternately skipping and racing away from machine gun blasts and rocket powered grenades.

Recovering from the shock of seeing such a cute creature metamorphosising into a rampaging war machine, Rain lowered the red tinted goggles on her head to her eyes and raised the Hypervelocity to her shoulder.

"Better brace yourself!" she yelled to Hana as the cannon quickly charged up.

As soon as the charge had reached its apex, Rain squeezed the trigger. Unfortunately, the horse chose this moment to stop running. 

The massive kickback of the cannon combined with the horse's sudden inertia caused Rain and Hana to fly over the horse's head and into a nearby sand dune. Hana dug her way out in time to see the horse disappear in a blue light, accompanied by a loud 'SNORT!'

She pinched the bridge of her nose again. "This does not bode well…"

"Well, on the bright side", said Rain, who appeared from underneath a pile of sand, "at least I took out the teddy."

This at least was true. The teddy was now nothing more than a pair of legs with a few sparking wires hanging out.

Hana sighed, running her hand through her ebony hair. "Now what do we do?"

Twelve giant teddies, each outfitted as their dead brother, chose this moment to rise out of the sand.

"How about running for it?" Rain suggested.

"Sounds like a plan", agreed Hana as they both leapt to their feet and sprinted in the opposite direction of the marauding stuffed toys.

As they ran they noticed a large building off in the distance.   

"What is that?" Hana yelled. As the structure came into focus her voice was raised an octave in incredulity. "And why the hell does it look like a giant penguin wearing a top hat?!?"

Rain didn't answer. She found it best not to in this circumstance.

As they neared the non-flying bird shaped building the door built into the foot swung open.

"Quickly, in here!" a voice called from within.

Not having the time to weigh the merits of accepting shelter from an unknown individual whose mental state could quite possibly be gauged by the shape of his house, the duo dived in and slammed the door closed behind them.

"That…that was close", Rain wheezed.

"Are you two all right?" the same voice as before came from behind them.

Turning as she spoke Hana replied, "Yes, thanks to-"

She found herself staring at thin air.

"-you?"

Hana and Rain looked around confusedly for a few seconds before they felt something tug at their pants legs. "Down here", the voice instructed.

Fearing the very worst, they both looked down…

…to find that their saviors were two foot high garden gnomes. Or rather, garden gnomes crossed with parakeets crossed with Mad Chasers crossed with Hard Hat Macs.

Before either Rain or Hana could react, the Mad Hat Paragnomes suddenly got to their knees in front of them. 

"Behold!" the same guy as before spoke. "As prophesized in the ancient teachings, our saviors have come to free us from the tyrants!"

"Hail!" the other little freaks replied in a creepy unified monotone.

Wanting to avoid the steady gaze of the Paragnomes Rain looked at Hana, then proceeded to look at the far wall when she saw that the older mercenary was looking at her with murder in her eyes.

*****

Not all the Paragnomes were in the main hall celebrating the arrival of the saviors. For in the next room, behind a huge metal door, sat one Gilbert Frumperdink who was feverently re-reading his horoscope.

Virgo 

You will soon meet a beautiful woman who will ride into your life on a mechanical lobster. Or maybe even a horse. She will be in her late teens/early twenties, EXTREMELY shapely, and a brunette. Or a blonde.

Gilbert stood up and peered through the letter-slot in the door. There were TWO beautiful shapely women there, they HAD arrived on a mechanical horse and they were a brunette and a blonde. An age scan which had activated the second the duo had entered the building showed them to be 18 (the blonde) and 20 (the brunette), at which point Gilbert had to stop himself from squealing with joy, as was his wont.  

_Everything's coming up Gilbert! _he thought happily, mere seconds before the heavy steel door swung open and mashed him into a fine paste against the wall.

*****

***SQUISH!***

Rain's face dropped from a smile to a horrified frown as her hand, which gripped the handle of the door suddenly felt very cold. Slowly she peered around the other side of the door. Her face managed to find a new shade of white to turn. 

"What was that?" asked the Paragnomes leader, whose name was revealed to be Carl Carlson.

"Nothing!" Rain breezed, leaning against the open door with a huge fake grin on her face. "Nothing at all! Why don't you show us that technology of yours?"

"Yes…technology!" the Paragnomes chanted as one, shuffling toward the massive super-computer as they did so.

Hana, who had seen that look on Rain's face before and knew as a sign that she had done something wrong, immediately became suspicious of the open door. Bracing herself she peered around it. Rain noticed uncomfortably that Hana's face, while completely drained of color, had once more the Look of Death. She made sure to stay a good distance away when she saw that look.

_What the hell did you do?!? _mouthed Hana, pointing furiously at the door. The Paragnomes' attention was focused on starting up the super computer.

_It was an accident!_ Rain mouthed back.

_An accident?_! Hana replied, looking incredulous. _You turn one of these freaks into something the consistency and color of raspberry jam and you call it an accident?!_

_You always have to blow everything I do out of proportion don't you? _Rain shot back, an annoyed expression on her face.

Hana opened her mouth to respond, but had to bite her tongue when the Paragnomes finally got the super computer working.

*****

"So do you see the peril we are in?" Carl Carlson asked Hana and Rain when the monitor had finished spewing forth a truckload of war images from this dimension.

"Yep", said Hana, who was beginning to wish they had stayed in Zif to face the lynch mob. Part of the reason for this was that it had sounded like complete and utter nonsense from the word go, especially for a seasoned assassin such as Hana. The Chuppa-Chops (the masters of the pink War Teddies) must be stopped from sucking the world dry of its supply of its precious supply of buttermilk? She had heard similar stories from senile psychiatric patients.

The other, more significant part for her finding little interest in the Paragnomes plight was Rain. As she had listened intensely to Carl Carlson's narration of the war, Rain had pulled her ponytail out of its scrunchie, letting her hair fall onto her shoulders. She then lightly tossed her hair a bit before tying it back up into its cute little ponytail. She did this three or four times during the two-hour display, and each time Hana was transfixed on her, her brain playing the ritual in slo-mo. She tried not to notice how hot it suddenly felt within the room.

"But now that you are here", smarmed an engineer by the name of John Frink, "we can now initiate a final strike against our foes."

"Of course", interjected Carl Carlson's second in command, a lady by the name of Maude Flanders, "we wouldn't dare insult you by giving you our meager mortal riches."

"Of course you wouldn't", Hana replied, who found her desire to keep out of this insanity strengthened.

"Oh, mighty saviors! Will you deliver us from our enemies?" boomed Carl Carlson.

Hana opened her mouth to say no but Rain beat her to it.

"Of course we will!" she chirped enthusiastically.      

Hana groaned. This was going to be a _long _epic…

To Be Continued…


End file.
